Whirling Dervish Again

How could I have gone so long without a word here?   I spend time working on my book project, going to church with the added Lenten studies and services, and hoping I don't throw a clot waiting for the Coumadin. My days and weeks have been ones of dizziness and attempted accomplishment. I pushed for a solution and was answered by a profound quote by my cardiac surgeon, "I have to think." 

We have found the Olympic coverage by NBC better than in past years.  Maybe it is just that we have more time for it at this stage in life.  Two deaths marked its days in Vancouver as well as the medalists.

Most of my time is centered on  research and writing.  It is good to have a cousin who is close in age to me with a good memory, and is a deep mine of information.  Today's phone call from him was a gift.

I find that Eve was not all to blame for the Fall of Mankind.  Adam should have come to her aid and crushed the serpent's head before he became beguiling.  But no, he just stood beside her and let it happen.  And why didn't he tempt Adam instead?  Because Eve mattered more.  I find the whole episode irritating and unjust.

St. Valentine's Day

Just as it often was when I was small, we are having a beautiful snowfall on Valentine's Day.

I never tire of the snow, nor the cold.  But I am spared the driveway and sidewalk clean up.

I feel almost pampered, not having to slide around on the ice that is so dangerous to us that are not real steady in the best of conditions.

"Put your arms around my neck," I am told as I attempt to get my feet on the ground as I exit the pick-up.  People at church must find it strange.  But then, other than the children, I am the shortest person at the 5:30 Saturday evening service.

Be My Valentine.

Snow and Paper Whites

Not only is the snow beautiful outside; but so are the Paper Whites a dear daughter-in-law gave us for Christmas.  I moved them closer to the west window hoping to keep them cool and blooming longer.

Not the best place to photograph them and I knew that.  White drapes were not much better with the white on white effect.

Five of the seven African Violets are brave bloomers. It doesn't take very much to make me happy.

We have snowfall the past two days and again last night.  It keeps the world white and beautiful and keeps He Who MBO plowing and shoveling.

February 5th Snowfall

So Softly, So Silently, So Beautiful.

Snow on Snow, Snow on Snow, In the Bleak Mid-Winter.

That Eyeglass Thing

We have all been there, trying on a newly ordered pair of eyeglasses, with the chart of deminishing lettering at the top and becoming larger as you read on down the card.  Have you ever, really read that card?  I did when I got new glasses after the cataract surgeries.

I was in for a real surprise and a new learning adventure.  It was an Epiphany for the season, we are in the fifth or sixth week of Epiphany, I think.  I actually read that card from top to bottom and I am not talking about the new glasses correction; I am talking about the words on the card...the meaning of those words.  It was an exacting rule as what size font to use in writing books with a note or two on shoulds and shouldn'ts.

The optometrist fitting my glasses copied the card for me.  As is my usual manner of routine, I cleaned out my purse and put that paper where I would need it to check against my work at hand. It is called "Standard Test Types."

Here is a little list:  These font sizes are limited to what is available here.

4 point   Small Bible
51/2 point Newspaper  Sports and Market
7 point   Newspaper   Columns
10 point  Text Books  Should be printed on dull finished paper.
11 point   Books
12 point   Books Sit with back to the light.
18 point  Children's Books ...excessive reading forbidden.

Thank You Notes

A beautiful granddaughter with her little son, our great grandson, Ethan Axel.

This photo arrived a few days ago in a thank you note.

Our New Baby!

Our Great Granddaughter, Camryn, is welcoming her new baby sister, Chloe.The birth of a new baby is a wonderful event.

Tech Help

And I thought MS Vista was problematic. www.flixxy.com/medieval-tech-support.htm

Our Own Epiphany Child

A Great-granddaughter is two today.
Being born on Epiphany is memorable.
Happy Birthday beautiful child.

The Finnish name "Loppiainen" refers to the end of the Christmas season, January 6 traditionally commemorates the wise men's arrival to pay homage to the infant Jesus. An older feast day than Christmas itself, it has been celebrated since the third century. Originally it was considered the birth date of Jesus, and later his baptismal date.  Many Finns take down their Christmas decorations after Epiphany, although some still wait until January 13, St Knut's Day (Nuutinpäivä), to take their Christmas trees out.  Perhaps I will had eKnuff of the tree by tomorrow and will take it out then.

O! Christmas Tree

I am a little too taken with our Christmas Tree.  Every year when we lug it out of the garage, we tell ourselves when we next put it in the box, we will have some "taking out order" to the task.

Every ornament, at this stage in life, has a story.  I gave most of mine to a granddaughter a few years ago.  But what I kept, I treasure and cherish.

The star on top was one my father cut out of a chrome car part in 1933 or '34 for my parent's Christmas long ago.

The little knitted dolls were given to me by a lovely elderly lady, Lempi, in Finland, who shared her small apartment with my mother and me in 1980.  She was a cousin of some of the Cave Hills Finns.

The small white feather snowball was one of a dozen I made from some Canada Snow Goose feathers that a neighbor fellow gave me after he hunted one Nebraska Winter.

He Whom I Love to Obey and I were alone, but not lonely, this Holiday. We laced the table, lighted candles, and opened large boxes full of many wondrous gifts, sent by sons and their families.

We drank champaign and dined on 'sweets and nuts' on Christmas Eve and shared our love and appreciation for one another.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve and Day Snowstorm

Churches cancelled Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Services.

We were cozy inside while people tried to keep their driveways cleared of snow. The little Wrangler with snow blade has done a good job with a man at the wheel who knows how to engineer snow around.  No doubt it has prevented a heart attack or two over the years.

Lessons and Carols

The Services last night at church were the Lessons and Carols.  Small children and adult choirs sang, the bells rang, solos were sung, and we joined in with verses and chorus's.  All in all it was beautiful to look at and listen to.  The fourth and final Advent candle was lit...Christmas will soon be here.

We are simply tripping over packages and decorations.  My little endeavor this afternoon was trying to find the photo we took one Christmas Eve downtown just before church services. Digital cameras are truly easy and convenient; but it is far too easy to take too many photos and trying to find a particular one in the hundreds on too many CD's and DVD's could try ones patience.  But find it I did and it replaces my snowy church scene.

I Love You Too

The love of friends is a great gift. Yesterday was one of preparation for dinner guests.  It included some tree trimming, some candle lighting in which we discovered that the fuel in our lighter was all used up. HWMO used his blow torch to light the grill. It sounded like overkill, but worked. We are a good team in the house and in the kitchen.  Of course we cooked.

Last night we had two couples over; the guys all worked together in the architectural/engineering firm for over 20 years.  They enjoy each others company.  They all worked in" sludge," they sometimes jokingly say, environmental engineers...in other words they kept the drinking water clean and set up large and small waste-water treatment plants for towns and cities in the Midwest including our own Omaha.

We visited about the wonderful Jewish wedding ten years ago.  The discussions we wives have are  from the viewpoints of three decades.  What wisdom we draw from that.  We talk about everything, our aging husbands, our own expectations, and determine that there is more stereotyping and little that is normal. I treasure our diversity.  Each of us live lives of quiet desperation over our particular situations.

It is heartwarming to be with friends, especially friends of such faith and love.  We are three Catholics, two Lutherans and one who is celebrating Hanukkah this week.  Our table graces include a blessing in Hebrew with the salted bread, the lovely Catholic blessing said by the three in unison, and instead of my prayer, I read from Jeremiah, " I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."  ..."This is a very fundamental truth of your identity.  This is who you are whether you feel it or not.  You belong to God from eternity to eternity.  Life is just a little opportunity for us during a few years to say, "I love you, too." Henri Nouwen

It is a wondrous time of the year.

Kindle for PC

I have longed for a Kindle; even when I didn't really know if I would like it.  When Amazon offered the Kindle for PC without charge I was pleased and delighted.  Now I have one "free" book which I just downloaded. 

Today is Horace's birthday 65 B.C.E.).   "His father was a former slave, but by the time Horace came along, he was well-off and had a lot of money to spend on his talented son. He sent him to Rome as a boy, and then to Athens to learn philosophy and literature. What is not to like about Horace?  Or Free!

“Jäälyhty” or Finnish “Ice Lantern”

A double cousin...a nice chap related to me through both my paternal and maternal grandmothers sides of the family, sent me the Finnish translation for these amazing ice candles. Our connection goes back before our people immigrated to the USA.  Little did we know about this before he so skillfully researched my family.

We have been making these ice lanterns a couple of  years now and enjoy them especially during these deep, dark, cold winter nights. We set one out in front, under the basket ball hoop beside the driveway, for our neighbors to enjoy.  Instead of a candle we put a solar light in that one. Apparently it was too cloudy for the little solar plant to work today.

Photographing them is a little tricky and as you see I took the picture in the early evening and the snow is still much too white.

Iowa PBS

Some days start out with a bump or two; and then the road is total washboard.  Driving on a washboard road is dangerous and rattles one teeth.  Living a washboard day is close to the same.

But then...amazing things can happen in the blink of an eye, or just staying with a thing till something good happens.  HWMBO came home from the Asian taylor's with a 40 foot coaxial cable to hook me directly to the internet.  My wireless system dug its feet in and would not, could not be coaxed into use.

It all started with a phone call to Cox, our service provider to get our main house computer online and when the phone was handed over to me I changed the topic, as a person sometimes does, and spoke about our cable television.  That led to a call to Manilla, Phillipines, with a young man who led me patiently through the television settings to find that I have 21 cable channels that are decoded by the Sony television set.

The lovely young Cox representative called back and was just as excited as I was;  she gave me all the channel numbers that I can get...just because.  Just because that is the way the world works.  But it took the visit to Manilla, and two phone calls to Cox.  And there it is all before me...hanging on the wall.  All I wanted was Iowa PBS.

I got so much more.  He is getting his pants hemmed by his favorite ladies. No they do not sell cables!

Two is Good, Three is Best of All

 Two Boe men, both named Bryce;  there is a third in the generation between these two. We have a concensus that they have the best of all names.

Voices: Words that Shaped our Souls

A dear friend gave me a small daily calendar a few years before she died. I am one of those people that enjoy the pithy words of wise souls. Today's is from Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) Clergyman, author, and professor. "Think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and...spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's out-of-doors." Today is Thanksgiving Day and I/we have so very much to be thankful for. Tomorrow a California Grandson will be with us for lunch and for that we are thankful. Actually our lives are bursting with blessings and our gratitude accompanies each one. Words are blessings. Thank you Bryce and Hildred for your kind comments regarding our little wedding photo.

1954 Faith, Hope, Love

We were optimistic about our future and thought that with enough faith and love we could turn our hopes and dreams into reality with hard and constant work. The sad state of affairs today that it all crumpled at our feet along with our carefully planned retirement.

Isolation and the Social Media Revolution

We all have lived through a few revolutions.  About the time we got our heads around Marshall McLuhan's premise of a Global Village, the reality is now  larger than life itself.  How then, can a person feel so isolated when the entire world and almost everything that has been discovered or learned, is right in front of our noses? 

The pioneering thinker about the media, Marshall McLuhan, coined the term, "the global village" in the 1960s to express his belief that electronic communication would unite the world. The advent of the internet over the past 10 years has paralleled the emergence of globalisation as a concept. Proponents and critics of globalisation have very different perspectives on the internet’s role.

To counteract isolation, the amazing social media have sought to plug into this lonely congregation; the creators of it become incredibly wealthy, it serves the needs for connection, while leading to more isolation and lack of personal contact. I think that talking face to face about an idea, with exploration of it from many angles, and listening politely to a different perspective without expecting the other face to agree, or your face to fall into dismay, amazement,  or rage, is a lost art.